Phiri nodded, listening as he went through the report. ‘I got a message that you wanted Clare Hart on your team?’ Phiri closed the report and handed it back to Riedwaan. ‘Why?’
‘She’s the best, sir,’ Riedwaan replied.
‘What makes you think you’ve got a serial killer here, Faizal? All you have is one body. Could be a once-off. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time.’
‘With respect, sir, I don’t think so.’ Riedwaan chose his words. He knew what Phiri was afraid of. One whiff of another serial killer and the press would be circling like vultures.
‘You think there’ll be another one?’ asked Phiri.
‘Let’s put it this way: I wouldn’t be surprised if there is another one. Or if there have been other girls killed like this that we haven’t heard about… yet.’
Phiri rubbed his eyes. It was two o’clock and he felt worn out. ‘So why Clare?’ he persisted.
‘This is her area, sir. Femicide and sex crimes.’ Riedwaan pointed to the bookshelf behind Phiri’s desk. ‘There’s her doctorate.’
‘It’s very good, meticulously researched,’ conceded Phiri. ‘But I’m not sure I agree that because we averted a civil war in South Africa that the “unspent violence was sublimated into a war against women. A war in which there are no rules and no limits”, as she argues whenever she gets the chance.’
‘It’s not her fault, sir, that brutality against women and children is intensifying while conviction rates are falling.’ Phiri was amused at how awkward the jargon sounded coming from Riedwaan Faizal, who went on to argue, ‘She’s profiled for the police since 1994, and she’s been very successful.’
‘She pisses off everybody she works with,’ Phiri argued.
‘Maybe because she’s a woman and she’s good.’
‘Bullshit, Faizal. It’s because she’s a loner and she does what she wants.’ Phiri looked at Riedwaan, then he laughed. ‘That’s why you like her, I suppose.’
Riedwaan smiled. ‘Whatever her faults, you know she’s the best, sir.’
‘I’m going to get shit about that last case you two worked on.’
Riedwaan felt the old anger again. He and Clare had worked on a series of abductions. They had built an excellent case against a gangster who abducted homeless girls of between eight and thirteen for his brothels. But two witnesses had been murdered and the others withdrew their statements. DNA evidence was contaminated, and then a whole docket disappeared. The case collapsed, taking their tentative investigation with it.
‘That wasn’t her fault,’ he said, the anger filtering through into his voice. ‘That was because of someone inside. Dockets don’t just walk.’
‘Some people say a docket can get lost if the person looking after it drinks too much. And when he doesn’t sleep at home.’
Riedwaan suppressed his anger. ‘What is the decision, sir?’
‘Like I said, Riedwaan. Last chance.’
Riedwaan looked at Phiri. ‘Last chance with Clare, too?’
Phiri nodded. ‘Last chance, Faizal, all round.’
‘Thank you, sir.’ Riedwaan stood up to leave, the autopsy report in his hands.
He was about to open the door when Phiri spoke again. ‘You catch him, Riedwaan. Not a word to the press yet. They will be on to this one like a ton of bricks.’
Riedwaan turned and looked at him. He didn’t want journalists hounding him again either. ‘Yes, sir.’ Riedwaan pulled the door shut behind him.
Phiri stared after him. If Riedwaan needed Clare Hart’s assistance, then good luck to him. And Phiri hoped that the killer, whoever he was, would still be fit for trial after Riedwaan had caught him.
5
Riedwaan threw the autopsy report onto his desk, ignoring Rita Mkhize’s stare. He hadn’t shaved that morning and he didn’t look his best. The previous day, while Piet Mouton had taken blood, scraped fingernails and taken more swabs, he had waited and watched for any new bruises to bloom, but they hadn’t. Mouton carefully cut open the body to remove and weigh the dead girl’s organs, reading from them how she had lived while searching out the secrets of her death.
‘Who is she?’ asked Rita.
‘Charnay Swanepoel. She was seventeen years old and in her last year of school. She also had a family. One younger brother. Parents alive, but separated. Father an auto-parts salesman who watched rugby on Saturdays. The mother a yoga teacher, New Age seeker, spiritual guide.’ Riedwaan read from the file.
As mismatched as me and Shazia were, thought Riedwaan, sipping his coffee. Shazia was a nurse – and his wife. She had moved to Canada and taken their daughter, Yasmin, with her. Shazia was convinced that the distance, the safety, of Canada would erase the terror etched into their daughter during the endless hours she had been a hostage. Riedwaan had heard her voice. Her kidnappers had called the gang hotline Riedwaan had established for informers, recording Yasmin’s terrified six-year-old pleas to her daddy to find her, for her mommy to come, for a drink of water, please, please. Riedwaan had not been able to prove it, but only Kelvin Landman had such a genius for cruelty. It had made him the Cape Flats’ ultimate hard man.
Riedwaan returned to his desk and opened the folder. The smiling school portrait that Charnay’s mother had given him in return for informing her of her daughter’s murder smiled up at him.
‘Here’s a piece of cake for you,’ said Rita.
‘Just what I needed. Thanks, Rita,’ he said, ‘it’s as sweet as you are.’
‘That gender sensitivity course you were sent on is doing wonders,’ laughed Rita.
She hovered next to his desk. ‘What you got, Riedwaan?’
‘I talked to her father yesterday. Chris Swanepoel. He sat the whole fucking Saturday watching rugby while his daughter was being murdered. You tell me how he did that?’
‘I don’t know, Riedwaan. But you know how people can panic. It freezes them. They just pretend nothing is happening and hope it will go away.’
‘He told me he didn’t want to make a mistake and report her missing to the police, and then she comes home with a
‘
‘On Sunday. He says that when she wasn’t home by lunchtime he started to look for her. Looked for her everywhere. That’s when they reported her missing. Three days later.’
‘Poor man,’ said Rita. ‘He must feel so terrible.’
‘Your heart’s too soft, Rita. You should have been a social worker, not in the police. I’m going to check out every move he made.’ For Riedwaan, fathers – like boyfriends – were always suspects.
‘What more could he have done, Riedwaan?’
‘Found her. Alive. Reported it earlier.’
Rita looked at him and shook her head. ‘You’re a hard man, Riedwaan.’ She went out, leaving him to his thoughts.
How could Swanepoel have failed to find his own daughter? Riedwaan had traced Yasmin to an abandoned warehouse by the faint signal emitted by the cellphone of the gangsters holding her, terrified that his discovery would be relayed through the metastasising web of gang informers and corrupt policemen. So he had gone in alone, and executed Yasmin’s kidnappers as they dozed undisturbed by the little girl’s desperate whimpering. Riedwaan had wiped his hysterical child clean of the blood spattered over her. But Yasmin still woke from her nightmares convinced that she was bathed in it. Riedwaan had found Yasmin, but as Shazia began telling him more and more frequently, that did not mean he had succeeded. There had been an investigation. The specialised and ruthless anti-gang squad he had established was dissolved. But community outrage at the rising number of child corpses in the latest bout of gang warfare had made it impossible to either charge or fire Faizal. His maverick justice had made him a community hero, so the best they could do was to shunt him sideways. He was posted to Sea Point, given a desk job and a pile of papers to shuffle. It was designed to make him fail – and he had. Shazia had begged
